BikeWalkKC recently visited the 1st graders at Citizens of the World Charter School to talk about being healthy and safe as we go through life. Each class participated in an hour long session dedicated to thinking about the built environment around us and the different ways we can explore it. Students learned about the health, economic, and environmental benefits of using our bodies as active transportation to get around when possible.

First, students engaged in discussion about different modes of transportation like walking, biking, using a scooter, taking the bus, or riding in a car. By drawing a picture on the whiteboard, the 1st graders placed the different types of commuters in their appropriate places: bike riders could go on the street OR the sidewalk; pedestrians belong on the sidewalk and should use crosswalks to get across the street; and cars drive on the right side of the road (bikes do too!).

After figuring out proper placement for commuters, we turned our focus to discovering different objects that exist in our built environment. Each student was given a bingo card with a variety of different pictures on them such as bus stops, speed limit signs, pedestrian crossing signs, bike racks, and crosswalks. There were also some negative pictures like litter, speeding cars, and cracks in the sidewalk. Bingo cards in hand, our 1st grade friends embarked on a journey of discovery around their school grounds, searching high and low for different signage and objects that occupied their bingo card space. Upon returning to class, the 1st graders knew that one trip into the world wasn’t enough to get a bingo “blackout”. They would have to utilize their observation skills during their own trips out into the world in order to fill in more of their card.

A huge thank you to Amanda Quance for setting up our time with our 1st grade neighbors at Citizens of the World!